I awoke in a room similar to the one that I was in when I first arrived in the underworld. I was just as plainly decorated.
"LaiSan, you are awake," ZhiHin said as I tried to sit up.
"Yes, what happened? Am I dead?" I asked him.
"Don't you remember, you weren't really living at that time?" he stated unemotionally.
"But, did I die?" I asked again, a bit more agitated.
"Well in a sense, yes you are no longer in AuYeung Lai San's body," he stated.
"But I never got the engagement. Does it mean I have to relive that timeline once again to undo that knot?" I asked.
He pulled out the knot. It was still a big jumble of strings but I could see distinctly that first knot had loosen from the rest of the clump.
"How did it come loose?" I asked.
"I am not so sure myself, but since it is loose from the other strings, it means that your mission was a success and you don't have to go back." he explained.
"Oh, okay then." I said solemnly. I felt a bit lost and a bit sad that I didn't get to say my goodbyes to everyone before I left.
"Well, it is good news, we can move on to the second lifetime." ZhiHin said without much emotion.
"Wait, give me some time to process all this! I just lived a short lifetime and I died young. So doesn't it mean that history has changed?" Don't we need to fix it?" I said very anxiously.
"As I said before, once you are successful in your mission, history resets and everything that you had done during that time no longer matters." he calmly explained.
"But that doesn't make sense! You said that history will change if I don't fix the knot issue, but me actually travelling back in time and doing what I do doesn't make the slightest difference in history?" I was confused about the whole situation.
"Exactly, when the extra people are there disrupting the timeline, it affects the timeline, but once that is removed the timeline resets. This is all I tell you. Maybe this is too much for a common soul to understand, just believe me," he said.
"Whatever, there must be more to this than you are saying! If you don't want to explain, then fine, let's start the second mission," I said with anger in my voice. I was feeling frustrated and annoyed. Having to do all this and reliving all these lives was a bit more exhausting and emotionally taxing than I thought it would be.
"Good, here read this," he handed me an open book.
"Is this the same book that you gave me last time? It seems a bit heavier." I tried to flip through the book but he slapped his hand down and said just read it and let's get started.
I huffed and said, "Fine."
I read it out loud, "My second lifetime, it is two hundred years from that first lifetime. It seems the MoYung family was still on the throne. My family name is Zhao and they are commoners. We own a small restaurant in the little city named Hua Cheng, translated as the Flower City. It is a city on the outskirts of the country. Father is a chef, and mother runs the front area. I have two younger brothers, named Zhao Zhen and Zhao Shu, and my name this time is Zhao Tong."
I stopped reading and asked, "Didn't you say that our souls stay within the same families, why am I in the Zhao family now?"
"I said, MEN follow the same family, so remember that your soulmate's family will be Szeto and the other man's family is Feng," he replied.
Then he waved his hand and said, " Well keep reading."
"Okay, okay. So this time I met my soulmate really early, we are childhood friends. He lived next door and we played together all the time. He has no other brothers or sisters, so he came over all the time while his parents worked as farmers on their own land. We married when I was 16."
I flipped to the next page and it was blank, I asked, "That's it. There are even less details than last t lifetime."
"Well, that is all we have to work on. Get ready I will open the portal." he stated.
"Already, you slave driver. I haven't even had time to rest." I got out of bed and put on my shoes hurriedly, as the portal started to open, I yelled at him, "Hey make sure you send me to the right body this time."
" Just go." he yelled back.
I walked through.